The School Library Pack for Special Schools

We have worked with disability specialists and consulted with special schools to develop a pack of accessible titles which we hope will be useful for special schools. Each pack contains;

Turn It Up, Doris! by Sam Lloyd

A puppet book with a sensory element, great for retaining the interest of children with attention difficulties and moderate to severe learning difficulties.

Download activities and session ideas for Turn it up Doris

All Join In by Quentin Blake

This rhyming picture book encourages interaction and is ideal to be read aloud to a group.

Download activities and session ideas for All Join In

Rabbityness by Jo Empson

A beautifully illustrated picture book that is sophisticated enough to appeal to secondary school audiences and offers plenty of scope for discussion.

Download activities and session ideas for Rabbityness

Boffin Boy and the Invaders from Space by David Orme and Peter Richardson

A stylish graphic novel-style book with a low reading age but high interest level.

Download activities and session ideas for Boffin Boy and the Invaders from Space

Sterling and the Canary by Andy Stanton

This hilarious story by the author of Mr. Gum is specifically written to be accessible and dyslexia friendly.

Download activities and session ideas for Sterling and the Canary

Revolting Records by Anne Rooney

A book of disgusting facts that is sure to be popular with the secondary age group and is also specifically written to be dyslexia friendly.

Download activities and session ideas for Revolting Records

A Roald Dahl audio book

A complete and unabridged recording of a popular Roald Dahl story on CD.

Resources

You can also download suggested activities and session ideas for each of the books using the above links.

You may also like to use some of the book activity ideas below which can be used with many different books including some of the School Library Pack titles.

Sharing stories

Choose actions or signs to represent story characters and use them when you tell and talk about the story.
Try telling the story but adding actions or signs for certain words in the story. Once students have become familiar with each selected action, you can try fully replacing the word with the action, much in the same way as silent actions can replace the singing in Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes. This could also be done using visual images, noises or even smell to represent some of the different words. You might want to combine several or all of the sensory experiences.

Discussion points

Discuss what it would be like if a character from one of the stories came to the students' environment. If they came to visit your school, what would you do and where would you take them?
Imagine a character from one book escaped into another, what would happen? What would they say? What would they do?
Match pictures within the story to symbols showing the relevant emotions.

Writing activities

Create a 'same and different' table for two stories, challenging students to look at two books and find five things that are the same and five things that are different.
Looking at the sensory stimuli in a story, create a spider diagram with the story title in the middle and the smells, tastes, touches, sights and sounds on the five radial arms. Around each of the five senses, encourage students to write experiences that would be encountered in the story.
Students could try writing a text message or email from one character to another.

Drama and performance

Create a sequence of three tableaus to represent the beginning, middle and end of the story. This can be a great acting experience for students who might not feel comfortable speaking or even moving in a performance.
Use a bed sheet and a light source to create a shadow theatre. You can make puppets out of card, or students can act themselves, in order to retell the story. You can change your own shadow by sticking ears onto a headband, or making a cardboard nose. If you use a projector, human actors can interact with cardboard puppets placed on the projection screen.
Agree someone (probably the teacher) to take on the personality of one of the characters. Students can then phone the character, and ask them questions. If confident, students can then try playing a different character themselves.

Get creative

Students can make their own 'envelope theatre' and paper finger puppets: cut an aperture in an A4 envelope and draw curtains on the front. Slide puppets of story characters inside and act out key scenes.
Adapt a nursery rhyme song you know to sing about the events in the story. For example, take Old King Cole or Twinkle Twinkle to give you a tune, then begin singing the story for your students and get them to continue it.